Thursday, July 29, 2010

Top Tips on Motivating Others

Keeping you team motivated can sometimes be hard work. Here are a few suggestions of ways that you can get them motivated and keep them motivated.

1. Get Passionate!

When motivating others you need to think about what motivates you. Then you need to get passionate!

Is there something in our life that you feel passionate about. It might be a hobby or sport that you enjoy. In order for you to really enjoy it and feel part of the process, you need to get passionate. When you talk about it to someone else your face lights up and you become animated. This will often draw others into the passion and get them to contribute their opinions.

Passion comes from the heart and is manifest as optimism, excitement, determination. Enthusiasm is deeply rooted in the power of choice rather than circumstance.

To motivate others then, being passionate about a subject can rub off onto them so that they pick up on your enthusiasms. Adverts are passionate, sales language is frequently passionate. Now it's your turn. Enthusiasm is contagious.

2. Identify their Passion

Having got passionate yourself, what happens if your passion does not match that of your colleague, member of staff... If you are motivating others, sometimes you have to put things into a framework that works with their passions.

If you are not sure what they are, ask them. This is also true for goals. Your goals may well not be someone else's so you will need to find a way to align your goals so that you are all in a win/win situation.

Making the person part of the solution rather than part of the problem will help motivate both them and you.

3. Act with Integrity

If you want others to follow your lead, make sure that your integrity is intact. You will never be able to get people on board if not. Think about the MPs expenses saga last year. Integrity allows you to develop trust, and where there is low trust it is difficult to inspire followers.

So one of your tasks as a manager is to create a model of high trust and integrity by setting a good example. Integrity is something which is so important and so valuable. Never compromise it.

4. Give Feedback

Remember that employee motivation is an ongoing process, not a once off task. So any opportunity you have to strengthen this process should be used. Giving feedback (particularly negative feedback) can often be difficult. But people need feedback to grow and overcome their blind spots.

Using the time for feedback positively however, can be give you a great opportunity to find new ways to motivate people. Very often given the right encouragement, people will find their own way to motivate themselves. Using feedback maybe a good way to find out what these are.

5. Reward Positive Behaviour

When teaching killer whales to jump through hoops, it is not possible to criticise the whale if it gets it wrong. So the trainers use small pieces of fish to encourage the whale to swim through the hoop under the water. They gradually raise the hoop until it is out of the water and the whale jumps to get its piece of fish.

By continually rewarding positive behaviour and providing complements rather than criticism, others will react more positively to the behaviour you would like them to adopt. Why not try it for a week and see what response you get.

6. Celebrate small wins

Don't forget to celebrate small wins. It is so easy to be put off achieving things by forgetting to mark those occasions when something has gone well. Build small wins into the programme and make sure that they are celebrated.

Remember to say thank you. It sounds so easy, but it is frequently forgotten.

By : Berry_Winter

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